


The Field Trip

by thuvia ptarth (thuviaptarth)



Category: Harlem Beat wa Yoake Mode, Mad Love Chase
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, recipient:mikeneko, yuletide2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-11-19
Updated: 2001-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thuviaptarth/pseuds/thuvia%20ptarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So a zombie, a werewolf, and a vampire walk into a museum ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Field Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by cofax and qwerty.

The A— Prefecture Museum of Natural History was built in 1910. It is divided into three sections: the Hall of Dinosaurs; the Hall of Stones; and the Hall of Plants. The pride of the museum's collection is the life-size model of a barosaurus constructed in 1954; the model was reconstructed in 1987 to better reflect an improved understanding of dinosaur anatomy.

The museum offers maps and guides in five languages and can provide tours in several more. Please contact the Visitors' Office for more information or to arrange tours for large parties. The museum's charter establishes its commitment to education; school groups are especially welcome, and guided tours by our staff can be arranged if the Visitors' Office is contacted in advance. 

*

  
The crack task force the King of Hell had assembled to find his errant son sat at a kitchen table and carefully forged parental signatures on their permissions forms. Souya was flipping a pen in his fingers as a test of dexterity and boredom, and dropping it half the time; Touma was reading the fine print; and Taiki was biting on a pen cap as he painstakingly filled out his name, address, and home room class.

"I don't see why I have to go," Souya complained. "Why would the school janitor go on a field trip anyway?" 

"Lady Veeta is going," Touma said shortly. "We're going." 

Taiki dated his form carefully. "She still thinks Yamato is Prince Kaito's disguise." 

"_I_ still think Yamato is Prince Kaito's disguise," Touma said. He blew out his breath in frustration. "I say we just take him back to Hell and be done with it." 

"Touma," Taiki said softly. 

"Fine, fine," Touma grumbled. "You want proof first, we'll get proof first. I got another dose of that potion. Spill some on the prince and he'll revert back to his true form." 

Worry still creased Taiki's brow. "What'll it do to a human?" 

"Nothing," Touma said. "Well, except make you smell like lemons." 

"Sounds like you two have it all covered," Souya said expansively, ripping his permission form in half, then crumpling the pieces into a ball. "No need for me." 

"That nurse you like is going," Touma said. "Haga-sensei." 

Souya plucked his permission form out of the trash bin and smoothed out the worst of the creases. "Do we have tape?" 

"Yes," Taiki said, "but I don't think the trip chaperones need the permission of their parents to attend." 

*

  
"Groups of four, groups of four," the teachers called out, shifting a boy here with a light shove or a girl there with a heavy pat on the shoulder. Haga-sensei, the school nurse, swept the students nearest her into hastily counted-off groups using nothing but her bright indifferent gaze. Haga-sensei was beautiful, everyone thought so, but it wasn't exactly a comfortable beauty. Her attention made you feel _hunted_, somehow.

"You have one hour to take notes," Principal Takashima announced. "Meet up at the stegosaurus in the lobby at noon!" The students scattered, their backpacks and purses bright and unnatural splotches of color against their somber uniforms. Museum guards followed the rowdiest groups at discreet distances, going in pairs like cops braving gang territory. 

"See how excited the children are!" Principal Takashima said happily. "More stimulated to learn in a new environment!" He was new, and had pedagogical theories. 

"Stimulated, my ass," muttered the physics teacher. Haga-sensei was on his side. She didn't have much experience with human young, but she knew kittens and demonspawn and it wasn't hard to extrapolate. 

"Smoke?" the physics teacher said to Haga-sensei, then shrugged at her headshake and moved on to the pretty young history teacher. Most of the teachers drifted off in one of two directions: outside, to smoke, or towards the elevators to the museum café, to sit and chat. Haga-sensei just tilted back her head, the better to examine the stegosaurus in the center of the lobby. Something about it reminded her of one of Kaito's uncles: the beady eyes, maybe, or the head plates and the tough little horn. 

A shaggy blond shape loomed up beside her. 

"Pretty huge, huh?" said the school janitor. He grinned around the straw he was chewing. "You know what else is huge?" 

"Is it stuffed?" Haga asked, taking a step closer to the dinosaur. Perhaps it was the trophy of a hunt. She'd heard that humans liked to preserve them, which did have a certain logic, though she herself preferred the kind of trophy you could eat. 

"It's plaster," said the janitor. "The real ones are inside, but they're just skeletons." He displayed a mouthful of shiny white teeth. "I got bones _way_ more interesting. Want to see?" 

"No," said Haga-sensei, and walked away. The janitor watched the sway of her hips and sighed. At the elevator bank, where they were still waiting for their lift, the math teacher turned to the principal with a puzzled look. "What's the school janitor doing here anyway?" 

*

  
There was never any doubt that Taiki and Yamato would be in the same group; they were best friends, after all. Yamato had been towing Taiki in the direction of the kendo team captain's tall, broad silhouette when tiny pink-nailed hands grabbed hold of Taiki's free forearm and pulled him back. Taiki watched Yamato disappear into the crowd with some distress. Yamato on his own seemed to have all the sense of self-preservation of a baby lemming, and that was even when Touma wasn't after him. Taiki blinked down at the obstruction on his arm. It had big, bright, determined eyes, flyaway hair, and a purse that matched its nails and lipstick.

"Asakura-kun!" chirped Mikage Kunitachi. "Let's go together!" 

"Taiki!" rumbled Touma in his other ear. "Where the hell's Souya?" 

Taiki offered a distracted smile to Touma and said in an undertone to Mikage-san, "Pestering Haga-sensei," then coughed and said, "I mean, that would be wonderful, Mikage-san" and "Pes—" 

"I heard you the first time," Touma said acidly. The scowl was equal parts for Taiki, Souya, bosomy school nurses, and all the planes of existence in general, with a dose of extra annoyance for this plane and its incomplete errands in particular. 

"Look," Taiki said to Touma, "maybe we should hold off—" 

Yamato popped up in front of him, shoulders drooping. "She went off with her friend and the captain and the vice-captain of the _archery club,_" he announced in tragic tones. "Oh, hello, Mikage-san, Kisaragi-san, what are you doing here?" 

"We're making up your group of four, of course," Touma said, glaring at Taiki. "The numbers are _just perfect."_

"Let's go look at the barosaurus first," Mikage said, consulting the sheet of instructions the teachers had passed out. "I already have a map." 

*

  
"Which way did he go?" Lady Veeta asked sharply, and the hellhounds cringed and whined. "Stop that, you sound like puppies. Straighten up! You're supposed to look like student teachers now." The lenses of her glasses glittered a little too much like insect eyes, but neither of the hounds dared say so.

"We lost sight of him, mistress," said one. 

"The human pups moved so fast!" complained the other. 

She rapped them each across the head. "_Look_ like student teachers, _act_ like hellhounds. Find him by _scent,_ you idiots!" 

"Oh," said one, and "oh," said the other, and they lifted up their heads and flared their human nostrils and sniffed. 

*

  
Invisible wires held the barosaurus' spine up in an arch like a suspension bridge. Its four feet were planted on the ground, its neck lowered, and its empty eye sockets fixed on the center of the archway that led you to its hall, so that you came up over a slight rise in the floor and met its dead and spacious gaze. Mikage squeaked when she saw it and Yamato breathed, _"Awesome,"_ almost too low to hear.

Taiki and Touma were too busy arguing to pay it much mind. "I just think we should wait for Souya," Taiki whispered. 

"Why?" Touma hissed back. 

"Barosaurs may have had _eight hearts._" Yamato read off the display raptly. "Their necks were lined with sets of ribbed bones so they could raise and lower their necks like cranes. Are you getting all this, Mikage-san?" 

"Eight hearts, necks with ribbed bones," Mikage said, sneaking a glance back at Taiki to see if he'd noticed how studious she was. Maybe he needed tutoring in some subject. Some subject Yamato Kujou wasn't any good at. 

"They were twenty-four to twenty-seven meters from head to tail and could weigh as much as twenty-four thousand kilograms," Yamato recited. "How much do you think the model weighs?" 

"I have the potion." Touma rattled the bottle in his pocket. "Why wait for Souya? We can do it ourselves. A splash, his true form revealed, our work done or one suspect eliminated. Simple." 

"I just don't think—" 

Touma pulled the bottle out impatiently. "Never mind, I'll—" 

"Why, hello!" Souya hailed them all cheerfully. 

"Hi!" said Yamato. 

"Huh," said Touma. 

"What's the school janitor doing here?" said Mikage. 

Taiki said nothing at all, very unhappily. 

"Whatcha looking at?" Souya said, tilting Mikage's notebook out of her hands and peering at it upside down. 

"We're _taking notes_," Mikage said very slowly and very emphatically. "It's a _school assignment."_

"Remarkable!" said Souya. He leered genially at her. She was no Haga-sensei, but she was, after all, both female and right there. 

"Did Haga-sensei tell you to get lost?" Touma asked. "Or did you just manage that part on your own?" 

"Hallo the group!" Lady Veeta caroled sweetly from up ahead. Mikage squeaked in surprise, just like she had for the dinosaur, and Yamato took an involuntary step back. Lady Veeta advanced, her rigid smile more terrifying than the hellhounds, even though their disguises had slipped slightly and their eyes were glowing red. They still had Yamato's scent: their heads swung to follow his every move. 

"Just great," Touma snapped. 

"What a popular destination," Souya said. "Are we expecting anyone else?" 

"I hope not," Taiki said, with absolute sincerity. 

"Hold this, will you?" Touma shoved the bottle into Mikage's hand and began rolling up his sleeves. Souya drifted up to stand at his shoulder. Taiki put Yamato behind him and distantly noticed Mikage scurry to join him. Touma and Lady Veeta were glaring at each other fit to set the air on fire, and the hellhounds were growling at a level just audible to the human ear. 

Mikage tugged at Taiki's sleeve. "I think we should go," she whispered. 

Yamato tugged at Taiki's other sleeve. "I think that's an excellent idea," he whispered. 

The three of them inched backward, step by step, Taiki spreading his arms to cover more of the two younger students behind him. 

The hellhounds snarled and leapt at Touma. Mikage gasped. 

"Oh, no, not the _dinosaur!"_ Yamato cried. If the dogs hit Touma and Souya, they'd all bowl into the barosaur and send the entire carefully balanced model crashing down. 

Taiki dove at the snarling mass of Touma and Souya and the hellhounds and knocked them all sideways; they missed the skeleton by inches. He struggled to his knees to see Mikage and Yamato sitting up, looking dazed and—wet? Mikage kicked at a crushed plastic soda bottle. "Kisaragi-kun, I hope you weren't very attached to your lemon water," she called out, taking the hand Yamato offered to help her up. 

Lady Veeta loomed behind them and caught the tail of Yamato's shirt, pulling him into a stagger. Taiki started toward her with a growl, but Mikage, slipping on a puddle of lemon water, fell sideways into them both, her arms windmilling. Yamato scrambled up and ran. 

Touma was playing teeth and tag with one of the hellhounds, but the other blocked Yamato's way to the exit. Rearing back, Yamato glanced around and took the only path open to him: up over the railing and onto the barosaurus's tail, skipping from bone to bone as if they were stones set in a stream. He made it all the way up to the join of tail and spine, then made the mistake of looking all the long down. Lady Veeta was shouting at him from below. He teetered. 

"Jump!" Taiki shouted. "I'll catch you!" 

A huge grin spread across Yamato's face. _"Geronimo!"_ he cried, and jumped. 

Taiki caught him in his arms, whirled around, and set the boy on his feet. "Okay?" he said breathlessly. 

"Oh," said Yamato, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright as stars, "let's do that again!" 

"Oh," said Taiki on a shaky breath, "let's not," and on the exhalation the hellhounds hit. He heard Yamato cry out but couldn't see him. Taiki's vision hazed over red; the growl started deep down low in his belly and rumbled out. 

"Don't. _Touch. YAMATO!"_ Taiki roared. 

He flung away everything in his path: a very startled pair of hellhounds; an even more startled Touma and Souya; and Lady Veeta, who was unwisely reaching underneath his arm for Yamato. 

"Oh, no," said Yamato on the floor, watching Lady Veeta's strange, graceful arc as she plummeted directly into the belly of the barosaur. 

For an instant, the entire barosaur _thrummed,_ a strange and bone-wrenching music. The wires sang, the plaster bones clanked; and then twenty-seven meters of plaster and cement bones collapsed in awful heap like the thunder of the biggest drums in the entire universe. The silence after rang so loud that it took them all another moment to realize that the ringing was actually alarms going off. 

*

  
They all ran like hell.

*

  
By the time Yamato crashed to his knees, he was in the Cretaceous Period. He didn't realize that the clatter of bone whips on the floor was him until his wings drooped over his head, interfering with his line of sight. He blinked up at them, then reached out a wondering hand.

"Oh, no," he breathed, "not _now,_" and then he heard voices and footsteps approaching the hall. 

He ducked behind a spinosaurus and lifted up his bone tails in an arc that mimicked the curve of its spine. 

An elderly couple held a toddler by his hands between them. They bent over the sign explaining the display. The kendo team captain, her best friend, and the captain and vice-captain of the archery club ducked their heads into the hall, held a brief muttered conversation, and vanished. The kendo team captain looked solid as a bear, reliable as granite; her friend looked like a squirrel, all bright eyes and busy mouth. Yamato sighed with longing, then froze. The old couple were reading the display sign aloud to their grandson and never noticed. 

"Spinosaurus," said the grandmother. "Can you say 'spinosaurus,' Akira?" 

Akira stared into Yamato's eyes. "Supinosrus," he said. 

"Good boy," his grandfather said. 

*

  
By the time Touma and Souya had stopped running, they were in the Hall of Geology. They bent over with their hands on their knees, panting. Touma was the first one to catch his breath, but Souya was the first one to look around. They said it in unison. "Where the hell is Taiki?"

*

  
Mikage stopped running almost as soon as she was out of the hall, ducking into a confused, babbling tour group of half a dozen kids about her age. She peered at the tall blurry figures closest to the barosaur exhibit. Where was Asakura-san? And where—her teeth ground—where was that damn Yamato?

*

  
Taiki found himself looking at an exhibit on flora of the Jurassic era. He blinked, after a moment identifying the disconcerting sound in his ears as silence—or, well, an alarm going off and a hubbub of raised voices somewhere in the background, but more importantly no tiny cheerful voice anywhere near-by. Where was Yamato?

And why was there plaster in his hair? 

*

  
Lady Veeta and the hellhounds looked out the windows of the museum café at the serene gray rain outside and quietly sipped their overpriced museum hot chocolate. The chocolate, if not the price, soothed their jangled nerves.

They could look for Yamato tomorrow. 

*

  
_This classic saber-toothed cat (or "Smilodon") roamed North and South America. Its upper teeth had serrated back edges and were usually 16-18 centimeters in adult animals. The sabertooth usually preyed on large herd animals such as horses, deer, and antelope._

Not bad, thought Haga-sensei, pleased. 

A tangle of white skin and black wings swept her slaloming into the display case and then bouncing onto the floor; Haga was a small spitting ball of white fur before she could think and had clawed a good pawful of flesh before she recognized the voice chattering in her ears, "Levun, Levun, it's me—" 

She stopped clawing long enough for Kaito to get his hands under her and his wings hunched up and half-spread above them. 

Levun batted at his nose with a paw. _What happened to you?_

Kaito gulped hard. "Mikage spilled something on me and—" 

_Mikage, too? _Levun flexed her claws in and out, considering. _I thought all we had to worry about was Lady Veeta._

"Mikage, too?" Kaito repeated doubtfully. "I don't think she's one of them." 

_What else could it be?_ Levun bit his wrist lightly to tell him to put her down. _She spilled something on you, eh? _She twisted around to lick the fingers that had been absently scratching her behind the ears. _Let's try washing you off._

"You think that will work?" 

_You got any better ideas?_

*

  
Prince Kaito tried putting his hands and the tips of his wings underneath a running faucet, but all that got him was wet—and still demonic—hands and wings.

"Where did Mikage splash you?" Haga-sensei, safely human again, asked. 

"My chest, I guess." They both looked at his broad muscled chest doubtfully. "I don't think I can fit in the sink," Kaito said. 

Haga caught water in her cupped hands, threw it on his chest, cupped her hands under the faucet again. It took four handfuls before Kaito abruptly shrank down into Yamato, and he threw himself on Haga with a grateful hug. "Oof!" she said, emphatically. 

Yamato raised his head from Haga's breasts, blushing. Levun was so soft in this form. And so _big_, in unexpected places. 

His gaze in the mirror met the gaze of the kendo team captain, who had just entered the women's room with her best friend. "Oh!" said the best friend, and "Excuse us," said the kendo team captain, and the two girls backed quickly out of the room. 

*

  
"Twelve o'clock!" sang the principal, and the teachers began counting off heads. The students milled around the stegosaurus, still chattering. Touma and the hellhounds snarled silently at each other from opposite ends of the crowd; Lady Veeta pretended to ignore the students, haughtily, and Haga-sensei actually did. Souya stole peeks down Haga-sensei's blouse until she elbowed him in the solar plexus. He staggered into the physics teacher, who gave him a shoulder to lean on and a quizzical look: "Say, what's the school janitor doing here anyway?" Mikage chased Taiki's retreating shoulders halfway around the crowd before giving up in frustration; Yamato, afraid she had another soda bottle hidden in her purse, kept tugging him away. Once he was so focused on avoiding Mikage he bumped into the kendo team captain; the captain nodded, her best friend tittered, and Yamato went bright red.

Principal Takashima herded the students outside, beaming. "Come along, come along! Time to go home." 

*

  
Principal Takashima's pedagogical theories suffered a great blow the next day, when he received an itemized bill for the damages by express mail. The museum director had thoughtfully included a copy of the surveillance tapes, but the dust had obscured all identifying characteristics except the school uniforms.

**Author's Note:**

> Key elements of the plot are borrowed from _Bringing Up Baby_. The barosaurus is borrowed from the American Museum of Natural History (with its posture corrected) and also comes in a Yule edition.


End file.
